1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a method and computer program product for obtaining and processing data collected from various media.
2. Description of Related Art
Researchers in Computer Supported Cooperative Work have broadened the term “work” in the last few decades to include such things as education, learning, medical care, and a wide variety of other in-home activities. Caring for and educating another person is often an inherently review and analysis intensive effort, including everyone from highly trained professionals to family members with varying experiences.
In the care of individuals with chronic conditions, treatments often span multiple caregivers across extended periods. Caregivers ideally will collect large amounts of data, both qualitative and quantitative, to help determine the effectiveness of various treatments and review these data regularly to adjust the care as needed. Because care is often administered individually, collaboration efforts are important in ensuring that care is administered correctly and consistently. Using recorded data as evidence to support decisions can be crucial for effective treatment.
Although data-based decision-making is an important component of chronic care management, it is not a trivial task. Many times, the task of collecting data is so burdensome that caregivers do not have time to collect it properly. Improper data collection may include missing data points, such as events that happen when no one was expecting them, or unreliable data due to being reported from a caregiver's retrospective memory, perhaps minutes, hours, or days after a moment of interest occurs. Even when data is collected, it might not be presented in a way that is amenable to synthesis and understanding, or it might not be consulted regularly enough to impact the trajectory of treatment in a timely fashion. Additionally, much of the data collected in these settings is paper-based, so it is difficult to make changes, share with others for discussion, make connections between different views of data, and review richer data such as videos or images.
Discrete Trial Training (DTT) therapy is currently a best practice method for teaching academic and life skills to children with autism and other developmental disabilities. In DTT, a team of therapists works individually with a child in a controlled setting. In individual sessions, a therapist instructs the child in a variety of skills in a highly-structured, repetitive manner, helping the child master correct behavior through errorless teaching and positive reinforcement. These skills, grouped as programs, often include academic skills such as word pronunciation, object identification, or counting, but can also include more practical skills, such as toileting or getting dressed.
FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary paper form used in DTT therapy. Throughout a session, the therapist records grades on a paper form 110 for each trial of all of the skills on which the child is working. After each session, the therapist calculates percentages of trials completed successfully and independently, and plots each program's results on a hand-drawn paper graph-form 120. Finally, if a skill has been “mastered” and thus no longer needs to be actively targeted, she will add new skills to the program. Therapists also write several paragraphs of general notes about the therapy session. These bookkeeping activities usually require 20 to 30 minutes of the therapist's time at the end of each session on the forms. The next therapist may read the collective notes before the next session, an activity that generally takes five or ten minutes.
DTT therapy is used in both home and school settings to teach skills which can later be generalized outside of therapy. Many young children actively engage in anywhere from 10 to 40 hours of therapy per week spread out over one to two hour sessions. The individual therapists working with a child typically participate in weekly or semi-weekly meetings to discuss the child's progress. In these meetings, therapists use several artifacts in their discussion of progress on the collection of active skills. Therapists may analyze these artifacts as a group during the meeting or use them as evidence at a particular point in the discussion.
Traditionally, team meetings, with participation from everyone working with a child and people who have a vested interest in the child, are an integral part of any DTT intervention. The therapists typically meet twice a month to discuss the progress of the child in learning various skills. A consultant who specializes in behavioral analysis and DTT may attend such meetings. The consultant often examines the data collected throughout the week and makes recommendations about the intervention plan. The consultant has little direct interaction with the child, only seeing him/her while testing out a skill during the team meetings. The consultant may ask the therapists to help clarify the data they collected. Based on the numeric data (often visualized as graphs) and input from the therapists, the consultant determines if the child is progressing well with the current path, or whether changes to the program of therapy would be necessary. Typically, one or both parents are present to inform the therapists of any significant behavioral and/or academic issues outside of therapy that may affect the sessions themselves. These issues often included the start of a new treatment, drug, or diet plan as well as reports from school.
DTT is a long-term iterative process, heavily dependent upon the outcome and results of individual sessions for plotting a future course of therapy. Unfortunately, video, audio, and handwritten data is kept on separate media, such as large binders and tapes, making access by individuals and groups wishing to review the results burdensome and impractical. It is especially difficult to assemble and present data for comparison of trends over time between various skills and therapists. Equally difficult is the using the handwritten data and video data together, which is important for visually analyzing the results for particular discrete trials. As a result, the majority of the data that is collected remains unutilized, while therapists and consultants rely largely of their memory and general impression from individual therapy sessions to determine the child's progress.
It would be beneficial to provide a method and computer program product for providing computer supported cooperative care for therapy sessions, enabling consultants and therapists to easily access and analyze data from various therapy sessions in an individual and group setting to evaluate the effectiveness and determine the course of the therapy.